Andrew Tutt (Yale): Must Foreign Affairs Be Special? From TNR, David A. Bell on the bookless library: Don’t deny the change — direct it wisely. Fernweh is what the Germans call that longing for faraway places; of such nonexistent locations, the mythical continent of Magellanica surely is the crowning glory. Nordic Exposure: We’re having a real Scandinavian moment — Nordic thrillers piling up on the best-seller list and on TV; The Scream, by Norway’s Edvard Munch, fetching $120 million; H&M colonizing Western malls, alongside Ikea. It may be possible to leapfrog government entirely — imagine “seasteading”, living on a floating city outside of any country’s jurisdiction. Ariau Towers: An Amazonian hotel is the ultimate treehouse and provides stilt based accommodation. You can downloadA Little Bit of Everything For Dummies (20th Anniversary Edition).

Neil H. Buchanan (GWU): Why We Should Never Pay Down the National Debt. When law professor Frank Alexander wrote the book on land banking, he didn’t expect it to help solve a foreclosure crisis. Why morality is fashionable again: After decades of self-interest, ethics are suddenly a talking point again. The philosophy of tax: A review of David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King. Fussbudget: Ryan Lizza on how Paul Ryan captured the G.O.P. Let us now praise James Agee: The journalist who pioneered serious film criticism showed a cinematic touch in all of his writing. Former Citigroup derivatives banker Omer Rosen discusses his time manipulating LIBOR numbers for a client. The movers and shakers of scandal-ridden Wall Street are busy scapegoating a “few rotten apples” — and hoping the rest of us don’t notice they’re still holding billions in ill-gotten gains.

Joshua J. Yates (Virginia): Abundance on Trial: The Cultural Significance of “Sustainability”. Why my baby is less disgusting than yours: Psychologists researching the human reaction of disgust find that on the whole we prefer our own family smells. A review of Grand Theories and Everyday Beliefs: Science, Philosophy, and Their Histories by Wallace Matson. From the Claremont Review of Books, James Q. Wilson on Tocqueville and America. Does it make any sense to create a wellbeing index? Julian Baggini and Richard Layard discuss. From New Left Project, an interview with Herman Schwartz on the political economy of multiculturalism (and part 2). Just before the Arab Spring, Vogue writer Joan Juliet Buck did an infamous interview with Asma al-Assad, Syria's first lady; for the first time, she tells the story behind the debacle.